By Benjamin Pulta
MANILA – The Court of Appeals (CA) has turned down a suit filed by dismissed Negros Oriental congressman Arnie Teves Jr. questioning the validity of the search warrant served at his home on March 10, 2023, which yielded several undocumented high-powered firearms and ammunition.
In a 32-page decision dated April 8, the appellate court noted that there was no grave abuse of discretion committed by Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 12 judge Renato Enciso.
Following the seizure of several firearms from the Teves household in Barangay Malabugas, Bayawan City, a complaint was filed for violation of Republic Act Nos. 10591 (Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act) and 9516 (law against illegal possession, manufacture, and dealing of explosives).
The CA said “the incidental discovery of other firearms, ammunition and explosives in the cabinets of the petitioner, which were all located within his residence, cannot be considered as a product of an unreasonable search.”
“The search warrants, by their own terms, authorized a search of the petitioner’s residential house in its entirety; these did not purport to limit the searching officers’ reach to isolated sub-sectors or specific rooms. The warrants are conspicuously silent regarding the purported bedrooms of the petitioner, Kurt Matthew or Axel (Axl). Had the issuing judge intended to restrict the search to these specific quarters, as he possessed the clear authority to so limit the warrants’ reach, he could have done so clearly and unequivocally,” the tribunal added.
Before their licenses to own guns were revoked, an initial record verification showed Teves had a license to own and possess 18 different firearms, while his son, former provincial board member Kurt Matthew Teves, owned 23 different firearms. The other son, Axl, had no license. (PNA)
